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Demon's Souls or Dark Souls?

As most people said, play both.

I'd advise Dark Souls first, because it's more noob friendly (there's a lot of bonfires, which are the game's "checkpoints", as opposed to Demon's Souls), it's also more polished so you won't get annoyed by something like Demon's Souls constant loadind screens (noobs tend to need to return to the hub a lot) or the annoying World Tendency mechanic (if you die as a human in a world it changes some things) and there's much more content to keep you entertained if you're a loot addict like me.

Then, if you get hooked, you'll probably want to go back to try Demon's Souls to get more of the experience (they are really similar, but as I said Demon's Souls lacks some polish and might put you off)
 
You're likely to find a 50/50 split here as to which is better, but you really should play both, starting with Demon's. As to which is better...I prefer Demon's. Better bosses, better level design, more consistent quality throughout even though I'd say Dark's best moments are a bit better than what you'll find in Demon's.

You can't loose.

Edit: I'm a bit confused by people saying Demon is harder than Dark. How so? I feel like Dark had more frustrating areas and a couple particularly tougher bosses in comparison to Demon.
 
I'd play Demon's first, but you gotta get both.

Don't worry about not being able to finish, if you're patient and learn all the traps and how to advance correctly though each level, it's not too difficult.
 
Idioteque said:
Cool, the difficult is what kinda worries me about these games.
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There's no way around the difficulty, but bear in mind three things:

(1) You will improve quickly.

It can take some getting used to the idea that just about any enemy can do significant damage to you (and even kill you), but after just a few hours of playing, you'll be learning how to manage enemy encounters to your advantage. Plus there's no shame in picking enemies off from a distance or poisoning them and running away. They're difficult games, but the combat is deliberate and not at all twitchy, so anyone familiar with 3D videogames can learn to be good at the Souls games.

(2) Death is just the beginning.

You will die often in both games, and while the penalty for death is real (you're not just going to rewind five seconds or anything), it's also not that significant. The most you're going to lose is souls (the all-in-one currency), and those are an infinite and easily accessible resource. The knowledge you get from dying is way more valuable than the souls you may not recover.

(3) The community is amazing.

If you're ever feeling confused or overwhelmed by the games (and you'd like to stop feeling that way), the wikis have all the information you need to turn the odds in your favor.

Anyway, there's probably not a right answer to your original question, but I'd recommend Demon's Souls first because, well, it came out first, and the server won't last forever (it's still up, right?).
 
DEMON'SSSSSS

PvP is faster and more fun IMO. Less variety sometimes, but still more fun.

Some self-whoring of youtube channel (ip ban etc) - http://www.youtube.com/user/sansviedotcom If you look up the Demon's Souls videos I like them more for the most part. Just the speed is more interesting.

Outside of PvP, the noise when you enter the fog is superior in Demon's Souls. And I like Boletaria setting / lore better.

For your noob question specifically, Dark Souls is probably easier / will have more people playing you can summon. Also my first play of Demon's Souls took forever because of Pure Black World Tendency so that's not too noob friendly.
 
If your biggest concern is difficulty, just start with the following characters: for Demon's use Royal, for Dark use Pyromancer. Those are considered the easiest playthroughs.
 
Someone mentioned Flamelurker as one of the hardest bosses in Demon's Souls. (He's the boss of 2-2, btw) I thought he was a cinch, and I'm trying to remember how I approached him. I believe I leveled up the Purple Flame Shield to the point where I could absorb all of his fire attacks without splash damage, and that I then kept my distance and spammed some sort of magic projectile at him (Soul Arrow, perhaps?). Since I kept my distance the whole time, and absorbed all his attacks, I was able to easily heal when needed. At that point it was just a war of attrition, staying locked onto him, keeping a wide distance between us, shield up and spells firing out of my hand, whittling away at him.

Some bosses in Demon's Souls are a joke with the stronger magic. I remember the Leechmonger in 5-1 went down with me just standing in place at the top of his lair and pelting him with fireballs, occasionally stepping aside when he sprayed gunk up at me. It's really rewarding when you're so strong that you can smite many bosses from afar.

As for the dreaded Maneater gargoyles at the end of 3-2, for the first one I kept the brazier in the middle of the arena between him and I, and I kept circling it, which threw off the other one's tracking. Then when the one was dead, I soul rayed (or maybe soul arrowed?) it to hell and back while standing at one end of the hall, keeping the wall at my back and the columns to my sides. Fun fight. :)

The boss that gave me the most trouble was probably Tower Knight in 1-2. Holy shit.

The best place to grind and level up is 4-3, after you've beaten the boss (The Storm King). You can come back with the spear you get in that level and just kill all of the giant flying stingrays, one hit each, then leave and cash in your souls.
 
Demons Souls = Metroid*
Dark Souls = Super Metroid

You'd appreciate Dark Souls more if you played Demons Souls first, but Dark Souls has a bigger scope, expanded systems and is balanced so the game is (relatively) more empowering for the player.

Especially if you have a PC with a controller, there's contest.


* By Metroid, I mean if we lived in a bizarro universe where Metroid was much tighter and more focused experience than Super Metroid, and had more refined PVP if you got really deep into the series. But for the average person, the later game is just easier to play.
 
impact said:
Demons


Netcode in Dark Souls is god awful. Lagstab all day in PvP.



Plus Demons is harder
Click to expand...


The net code in Demon's Souls is terrible.I would say even worse and they had severs.They took a step back with Dark in making it P2P but i'll still defend Dark Souls net code anyday running.LYou land a backstab and legit backstab and the shit doesn't even go through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12a7fBrRJuY&


Quck edit* this is my favorite Demon's Souls pvp video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdZIbick_1w
 
Neiteio said:
Someone mentioned Flamelurker as one of the hardest bosses in Demon's Souls. (He's the boss of 2-2, btw) I thought he was a cinch, and I'm trying to remember how I approached him. I believe I leveled up the Purple Flame Shield to the point where I could absorb all of his fire attacks without splash damage, and that I then kept my distance and spammed some sort of magic projectile at him (Soul Arrow, perhaps?). Since I kept my distance the whole time, and absorbed all his attacks, I was able to easily heal when needed. At that point it was just a war of attrition, staying locked onto him, keeping a wide distance between us, shield up and spells firing out of my hand, whittling away at him.

Some bosses in Demon's Souls are a joke with the stronger magic. I remember the Leechmonger in 5-1 went down with me just standing in place at the top of his lair and pelting him with fireballs, occasionally stepping aside when he sprayed gunk up at me. It's really rewarding when you're so strong that you can smite many bosses from afar.

As for the dreaded Maneater gargoyles at the end of 3-2, for the first one I kept the brazier in the middle of the arena between him and I, and I kept circling it, which threw off the other one's tracking. Then when the one was dead, I soul rayed (or maybe soul arrowed?) it to hell and back while standing at one end of the hall, keeping the wall at my back and the columns to my sides. Fun fight. :)

The boss that gave me the most trouble was probably Tower Knight in 1-2. Holy shit.
Click to expand...

Flamelurker was weak to magic, but I was playing a melee/physical character with zero magic (actually, I never played a character with magic in Demon's Souls). If I had known that at the time I would have used the White Sticky Stuff to make my weapon more effective, but I didn't, so yeah.
 
Dark Souls. All day, every day.

I tried playing Demon's Souls again after playing Prepare to Die Edition on my PC and realized that they only compared similarly in my mind because of my nostalgia glasses. Dark Souls is way better, IMO.
 
chaosblade said:
Flamelurker was weak to magic, but I was playing a melee/physical character with zero magic (actually, I never played a character with magic in Demon's Souls). If I had known that at the time I would have used the White Sticky Stuff to make my weapon more effective, but I didn't, so yeah.
Click to expand...
I didn't use a magic character, either, but you can boost your magic stat and learn magic moves all the same. And once I learned that, I started focusing on my magic, so that in the end I could carry multiple spells at once. And let me tell you, Poison Cloud is BEASTLY. (Not on Flamelurker, but it allowed me to kill the three black knights lined up side by side at the end of 1-3 -- and I didn't even need to hit them!)
 
Phat Michael said:
This. Start with Demons. Read the wikis back and front. Go to Dark.

Both are excellent games that will really stay with you long after you turn off your ps3.

Both have their highs and lows but they are incredible games.
Click to expand...

Kind of ruins the experience doesn't it? The Wikis are great for equipment and stuff, but avoid walkthroughs.
 
Recommending one over the other is hard for me. Both games are goddamned incredible. Demon's Souls is a bit easier, and isn't as overwhelming as Dark Souls can be, but both games require you to become deeply skilled and immersed in them if you are to enjoy/see everything that they have to offer. I think Demon's Souls is the better starting point even if the world tendency stuff is tricky to figure out.

For a new player, Demon's Souls has the advantage of being divided off into chunks that you can conquer. It is easy to know which way to go to make progress.
 
demon's souls is the better game, but i'd still play them in order. dark souls isn't so much as 'worse' as it is 'not better' than demon's.

or you can be real hardcore about it and start with the original japanese king's field on PSX and work your way up.
 
It's worth noting that it's not burdensome to become better at these games, because you'll want to become better at them, since getting even a little further on any given try is immensely rewarding and feels like a major accomplishment. It doesn't hurt that the basic act of fighting is so tight, polished, fluid and fun, with a tremendous sense of weight and impact yet flexibility and response. Easily the best sword-fighting in a game, I'd say.
 
Demon's souls is safer because of the central hub. Dark Souls is connected seamlessly and you can go pretty much anywhere. Pvp is more balanced in Dark Souls.
 
Himself said:
Edit: I'm a bit confused by people saying Demon is harder than Dark. How so? I feel like Dark had more frustrating areas and a couple particularly tougher bosses in comparison to Demon.
Click to expand...
Dark being easier was also my impression while playing it, but coming back to Demon's I realize that DkS seemed easier only because I had already spent hours on DeS, and knew the gameplay well.
It also probably has to do with the atmospheres of both games: Dark is more open, it offers more bright, and even pleasant, areas, whereas Demon's world feels a lot more desperate and creepy. But it's not really that much harder.

Edit:


meltingparappa said:
Really, there is no wrong answer, OP.
Click to expand...
Also this.
 
I would go for Demon's Souls first. I played through it first, and I like how it gave me perspective on the changes made to its followup.

I also think Demon's Souls has slightly better pacing; some of the areas in Dark Souls tended to string too many really difficult parts together too closely. It felt a bit like "oh, you like chocolate frosting? Here, have a big bowl of it!" Whereas Demon's Souls had a little more cake in the mix.

They're both fantastic games though.
 
Also if you play demons souls word of advice is DO NOT attack the NPCs there. As they will hit back and most likely kill you early on.
 
dosh said:
Dark being easier was also my impression while playing it, but coming back to Demon's I realize that DkS seemed easier only because I had already spent hours on DeS, and knew the gameplay well.
Click to expand...

having played dark last fall for at least 120-150 hours, coming back to it on PC i've been FLYING through the game. it's really not that hard once you know what to do/where to go/how to handle certain enemies.

i find that demon's has that random element (either by design or lack thereof) of sometimes just completely giving you the finger despite your skill/knowledge/awareness.
 
Play Demon's, AND THEN play Dark. In that order. You must play both, they are both among the best games ever made.
 
John Rabbit said:
having played dark last fall for at least 120-150 hours, coming back to it on PC i've been FLYING through the game. it's really not that hard once you know what to do/where to go/how to handle certain enemies.

i find that demon's has that random element (either by design or lack thereof) of sometimes just completely giving you the finger despite your skill/knowledge/awareness.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I feel they're both the same in that aspect. First playthrough takes a while, but after you've played it a few times both games can be completed in under a few hours.

Demon's still has world tendency though, and some of those black phantom enemies are extremely hard. Maybe if gravelording worked properly then they would be more comparable in difficulty.
 
Start with Demon's Souls, be sure to pick the US version to enjoy the full online experience (oh the thrill of getting Invaded!). Hope you'll enjoy the game, it's quite something ^^
 
I wouldn't know about Demon's Souls, but Dark Souls is fantastic and one of my favourite games of this generation. To be honest I would be inclined to think either choice will do you good, so get both if you can.
 
Demon's Souls is better and came before Dark Souls, so you should play it first.

More consistent level design in terms of quality, more atmospheric, and better game performance (on consoles) and dedicated servers. You'll also find more messages written by other people since you don't have to buy an item to write them. It also has the Maiden in Black, the coolest NPC from either game.
 
If you only had money for one, i would say Demon's Souls. However, once you finish that you probably will break open your piggy bank for dark Souls not too soon after.
 
Dark Souls is the game of the generation so if you will only play one, play this.

However, if you have a PS3 and the willingness to play both, grab Demon's Souls first. It's important since some of the improvements in Dark make Demon look worse.
 
I'm jealous OP. I wish I could experience Demon's or Dark Souls for the first time again.

.. oh, and to answer your question: start with Demon's Souls, take it slowly and enjoy it. Don't read any walkthroughs, except maybe after you've completed the game and start obsessing over equipment and side-quests.
After you've finished it, savored the experience and have started longing for something else of equal quality (yet slightly different), then play Dark Souls.

Enjoy the increase in your quality of life while playing these games. There's nothing else quite like them.

Basically this:

Ra1den said:
Play Demon's, AND THEN play Dark. In that order. You must play both, they are both among the best games ever made.
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